The Pretender
by Acey Dearest
Summary: Juunanagou thinks about his sister's marriage to Kuririn years afterward.


"The Pretender" by Acey  
  
Disclaimer: DBZ belongs to Mr. Toriyama, not me.   
It probably would have gone better if he had attended the wedding. By "attending," doing more than merely standing just in the parishes' church grounds, staring into the stained glass window, seeing straight through the colored panes to the other side, watching his sister exchange her vows with the absolute caricature of the poor, insignificant monk. Watching bitterly as the friends of the said lucky fool threw rice as the newlyweds walked to the aircar, the ancient tradition. Watching, bright orange bandanna flapping around in the half-breeze, as the car flew away.  
She ought to have noticed his presence, ought not to have been so involved with her own affairs to not realize he was there. But she didn't even turn around to look back at the steepled little church, oh, no. Juuhachigou had looked forward, ever forward, the former monk by her side. It was, by far, the most sickening scene in his recallable existence of a year now, including his own absorption.  
He shrugged. Too late now. He couldn't run after her with all the other, unfortunately stronger fighters there as well, couldn't bring her back to her senses when she so obviously had opted to choose this route in however long a life she had. Juuhachigou would always have her way, regardless, and the worst part, the very worst part, was that she knew it. Juunanagou glared at the minuscule chapel and walked away.  
  
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Nine years later, he was still alone, as he would probably remain for an eternity, the permanent anachronism, wrong time, out of time, however the definition went. The ageless face once reflected in a mirror was the same, eyes, catlike, reminding the rare onlooker of chips of blue-hued ice, jet black hair in the old cut, part brutally in the middle. Juuhachi could change her hairstyle, Juunanagou thought with no small, bitter satisfaction, but all the same, she couldn't change anything else.  
And the midget would die soon enough, no question about it. Even the little girl that Juuhachigou talked about during almost every visit but never brought along, she would die eventually. A great equalizer, Death, in all carnations as depicted in "Twilight Zone" specials from a human-appearing being knocking on an old lady's door circa 1961 to a figure on horseback without a face in 1865. Either way, they were the only glimpses of him that Juunanagou would see for another eon, not that he hadn't already twice.  
They were fictitious. Any child above the age of four could tell you that. All the same, Juunanagou would have preferred to see a better personification of Death. A red giant sitting behind a desk didn't really cut it-- Juunanagou had expected the man on horseback the first time he'd died, and had said so. Needless to say, this had not helped his already bad record.  
He sighed softly as he watched the wind blow the trees around, ever so slightly, back, forth, back, forth, like a swing without passengers. He didn't have anything to do, not that he ever really did. The monotony of his life was calming, almost cheering now that he knew the flip side of an adventurous day. Juunanagou had seen all he wanted to see. There was nothing more he felt like expecting, nothing more he wanted to bother with, bother having. It would go, anyway, whatever it was, if you just waited awhile, and then there was no retrieving it. Pointless.  
Pointless. Juunanagou wished Juuhachigou had realized that before she'd left, left without saying a word, gone straight from his cabin to an altar. They hadn't been on bad terms at all, but it would have been a lie to say that he hadn't felt jealous of the monk his sister had started to spend her time with. She didn't lie about where she went, in fact, she told him with an excited look on her face that announced plainly she thought he'd be pleased, somehow. It had been all he could do to bite back the sarcastic responses that came to his head almost instantaneously, and Juuhachi would take offense if he said nothing. His answer before long, then, had become an "all right," if that much.   
"All right--" and then she'd married Kuririn, quite possibly the most useless attempt at realism he had ever heard of, an impossible dream of an impossible person who couldn't accept the fact that she wasn't one of them anymore, couldn't even remember being one. Whether that was something to be thankful for or not, Juunanagou didn't know, but all the same, at least he understood that it was hopeless, hopeless to try, as Juuhachigou had, to live a wonderfully normal life like them when in the end, it could not be done. You could hide the fact that you weren't human for a few years (though Kuririn obviously knew otherwise, as did all his friends), start a family, but given enough time, the diversion would cease. The little family that Juuhachigou had fashioned would leave, and she would be left alone, eventually, for the imitation of life scarcely has any of its own, and therefore remains.  
She might come back then, the pretender thought, gleam of sunset flashing slightly in his cerulean eyes, and a little optimism came back to his features as he turned the idea over in his mind, detached, sad.  
And if she does, I guess I'll let her.  
  
finis 


End file.
